


We're Still Alive

by EvilTevene



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-18 14:16:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18701284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilTevene/pseuds/EvilTevene
Summary: The Long Night is over, and while The Last War has yet to begin, two old enemies turned friends meet back up and discuss their plans for the future.





	We're Still Alive

The silence of winter didn't feel appropriate after everything that had conspired here. Yet it seemed that not even the wind blew on Winterfell now. Nothing to be heard but the muted crunch of snow beneath his boots and the groan of leather and metal as he lurched across the grounds. There were still bodies to be tended to. Blood to wash away. Repairs to the castle would take longer still. They'd probably still be making repairs long after he was cold in his own grave, which might be soon once the Lannister bitch had her army up their asses.  
The situation didn't look good. If he cared, he might admire the move to wait out the fight and clean up the remains. It was an easy way to win a war. Too bad Sandor Clegane seemed to keep finding himself on the wrong side of these things.  
He wasn't here to sulk though. The Hound, as people still often called him (he'd never be rid of Joffrey's title for him, the little cunt), was looking for someone, which was turning into a pain in the ass as she was so fucking short. He'd have thought that someone so small would stand out among the other Northerners here. Many were nearly as tall as him — including her sister.  
It took half the day before he did finally see her. He'd nearly given up on his search until he thoughtlessly wandered into the godswood. She was curled in the lower branches of the weirwood tree, staring off into nothing.  
He'd known she survived the fight because no one had shut up about how Ned Stark's youngest girl had killed the Night King. He'd heard it — and believed it — instantly. If anyone was going to be hard enough to stick a knife in Death itself, it was her. Yet he still couldn't stomp down the tingle of relief at seeing her. Her head was bandaged and bruised, and she looked tired as hell (weren't they all?) but she was alive and in one piece.  
He approached the tree and stood, quietly watching Arya as she watched nothing. Clegane wasn't surprised when she spoke first.  
“I see you made it.” The sentence was flat and filled with exhaustion.  
“I see you did too.” He replied similarly. “Heard you're a fucking hero too, or some crazy some shit like that.”  
The ghost of a grin flickered on the side of her face he could see.  
“Don't know about that. I did what anyone would have done.”  
Clegane blinked.  
“But not what everyone could have done.” He inched closer without realizing he was doing it. “All the fuckers still alive around here and you're the only one with balls enough to land the kill.” He paused again, uncertain if he wants to ask the next question. “So how'd you do it?”  
Arya turned her head, eyebrow cocked. He could see the bruise that was forming underneath her bandages more clearly from this angle. It had left her right eye just slightly swollen closed. He wouldn't say it, but she looked a bit like him just then. He's not sure how he feels about that.  
“I did what you said.”  
“What's that?”  
“I stuck him in the heart.”  
In a motion like water, Arya slid from the branch to the ground. She stood just a few feet away from him, her dark eyes searching his face for something.  
“You came for me.”  
Clegane sighed and stared at her a long while for that. The hardness of her expression, the injuries on her face, the firmness of her stance. All of it was betrayed by a softness in her eyes just now.  
“Aye.”  
“Why?”  
He'd been asking himself that for a while now. Seeing her here again in Winterfell, safe, had lit a candle in his heart. He'd never thought he'd see her again. Not alive, at least. He hadn't known how to express that, so instead, he'd just called her a bitch. Not his best approach. That said, her question still irritated him even though she had every right to ask it.  
“What do you mean why?” It came out as a snarl, even though he didn't intend for it to. “I kept you safe for an entire year. I fought for you! I nearly died for you! Twice! Why do you think I came after you?”  
Arya's face turned sour for a moment, and Clegane was afraid she was going to actually make him spell it out. Or worse, that she was disgusted. Misunderstanding him, maybe. Seven hells, wouldn’t that be hilarious? But it seemed a moments thought revealed the unspoken confession in his words.  
“You're a strange man.” She said at last.  
“I'm also a stupid man.”  
Arya grinned.  
“Are you going to fight your brother now?”  
The Hound rolled his shoulders. Then his head, and grimaced.  
“Probably.”  
“What are you going to do after that?”  
“If I don't die, you mean?”  
She grinned again.  
“You're too miserable of an old bastard to die.”  
Clegane actually laughed this time.  
“You're right about that.” He sighed and looked around. “I'm sure as hell not staying in this shithole.”  
Arya looked around as if considering her surroundings. He waited for her to snap at him. To defend her ancestral home. Instead, what she said made him start.  
“Me either.”  
“What!?”  
Arya looked around at him, her face struck. He had practically barked his reply, more shocked than anything.  
“What do you mean you're not staying? It's your home! Your family! Your stupid bastard brother and your lofty twat sister! And your -” he waved his hands around in clear disapproval “- boy that won't stop giving you doe eyes. Don't think I hadn't noticed!”  
Arya smiled broadly at that, and Clegane knew immediately that he'd played the final hand in a deck he shouldn't have revealed. The one he'd been trying to hide since she'd laughed herself silly at hearing her aunt had died. The one he'd gained realizing she probably didn't have anyone anymore. She was just like him.  
“Not really.” She said after a moment. “Jon's going to marry the Dragon Queen, I'm sure. Sansa will have Winterfell, and Gendry -” at his name, The Hound made a rather uncouth noise in the back of his throat “- will do what Gendry wants. As for me, I think I'd like to see more of the world.”  
“Like where?”  
“Haven't decided yet. Have to survive the war first.”  
“The war?”  
Arya’s eyes narrowed. “Cercei's war.”  
“You're going to fight?” He felt an explosion of panic somewhere in his gut. Her fighting the White Walkers had made sense enough, but he hadn't thought the girl would be going to this battle too.  
She, however, seemed to think it was perfectly natural.  
“Yes?”  
“Your brother and sister know about this?”  
She scoffed. Clegane had apparently forgotten who he was talking to for a minute. She wasn't going to ask permission to fight. She didn't need it. She'd earned the right to do what she damn well pleased the second she drove a Valyrian dagger into the Night King's chest. Clegane couldn't argue her out of it, but he'd hoped she'd sit this one out.  
She was right. He was an idiot.  
Arya seemed to see he had worked her reasoning out himself and didn't press the issue. Instead, they stood within a few feet of each other, awkwardly basking in the silence.  
“So what will you do once you kill your brother?”  
“Don't know. Might go see the world. I don't know shite, after all. Maybe I should fix that.”  
Arya grinned.  
“Maybe you should.”  
Clegane grinned back. As he did, he moved to sit beneath the shadow of the weirwood tree, and for an unsettling moment, Arya caught a flash of her father as he used to be in Sandor Clegane's posture. It was gone as soon as it came, but the moment left her stricken.  
The Hound, none the wiser, lifted a wineskin to his lips and dragged deeply from it. He stoppered it before tossing it to Arya, who caught it deftly. She followed suit while taking a seat next to him.  
“So where to first?” He asked as she drank. “Heard you already been to Bravos.”  
Arya grinned.  
“Who said you're coming with me?”  
“I said.”  
“I'm not paying you.”  
“You didn't pay me last time.”  
“You assumed someone else would. That's not my fault.”  
“Nah. Its mine for being an idiot.”  
“Pretty sure Jon and Sansa would give you money to take me now.”  
She said it with a smile, but Clegane saw and heard it in her voice. The thing that drew him to her. The thing that made him feel an awkward kinship to the little shit. It was loneliness.  
He didn't ask her to elaborate. He could see it in the way people looked at her. They were scared of her. She was a hero, but people didn't know what to do with heroes. Not the ones that conquered the unknown. Arya Stark was a legend, but she would always be isolated because of it.  
Except for him. Sandor Clegane knew a stupid little shit when he saw one, and he knew when someone didn't want to be alone because he'd seen it on his own face all his life.  
“Fuck the North,” he growled. Arya offered him the wineskin and he took it.  
“Fuck Westeros.”  
Clegane smiled.  
“Now you're getting it, girl.”  
Arya raised her eyebrows in a gesture of good humor.  
“It's a pity we're both slow learners.”  
“But we're still alive.”  
“Aye,” she replied with a grin. “We are still alive.”


End file.
